Nick Olsen Proves an Iconic Brand's Versatility in a New Shoot

Say the name Brunschwig & Fils to any designer, and they'll likely sigh in admiration as visions of the storied brand's most iconic patterns—Les Touches, Panthere, Chinoiserie toile—dance through their heads. But like any other smart brand, the company must adapt, and Brunschwig has continued to debut motifs that present its history in new ways. Its latest collection, Baret, is named for the pioneering French explorer Jeanne Barét (pseudonym, Jean), the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Appropriately, it features motifs inspired by the far-flung locales to which she traveled—the brand presents everything from suzanis to chinoiseries in unexpected, modern colorways that fly in the face of any categorization of the company as old-school. To underscore this, the team at Kravet, Brunschwig's parent company, turned to a young designer they trusted to make their fabrics feel fresh: Nick Olsen.

"I love all the Kravet brands," Olsen tells AD PRO. "Brunschwig, though, is the grand dame of the portfolio. It's luxury and history and elegance and sumptuous, beautiful fabrics and trims. In a certain market that gets pigeonholed into something older or more conservative, but it's really none of those things. The collection is bold and bright and calling on traditional inspiration, in vibrant colors and through a new lens." This attitude is exactly the reason Kravet called on Olsen to style its latest catalog shoot. For the occasion, the designer conceived several vignettes that show the breadth of the collection—one of which lives on past the shoot breakdown in the Kravet showroom at the D&D building. AD PRO visited Olsen at the shoot to hear his thoughts on styling for a catalog and his strategy to making an iconic brand feel young again—without sacrificing any of that history, elegance, and sumptuousness.

Olsen made use of pillows, furniture, and walls to create a bold mix of patterns.

Think Outside the Box

"It's all about using them in unexpected ways," says Olsen of the fabrics, which he's turned into pillows, upholstered, and mounted on the walls. "The chinoiserie scene in our vignette might be, to your average customer, too bold to use on the wall, but I said, 'Let's absolutely do that.' Then, some people might say, 'Oh, that's a statement so the rest has to be solids,' but you can totally use the bouclé next to that and the leopard linen in the same room, and use the eastern embroidery pillow fabric. To me, it all goes together, so it's showing people how to use those classic patterns in a same space where they don't fight."

Scale Is Key

Far more important than being concerned over clashing patterns, Olsen says, is making sure the scale looks right—whether it's for a photo or a finished room. "Always consider scale," Olsen says. "With flowers or props, nothing is ever too full in a photo." That said, Olsen is sure to pay careful attention to the way the vignette will look in the specific frame of the photo. "I had chosen a really large-scale work for the showroom vignette," he explains as two white-gloved workers swap out a painting on a wall behind him. "But for the photos it was too big and blocked too much. It's about giving everything enough breathing room."

A Brunschwig stripe next to an antique table sourced by Olsen.

Olsen shows off a selection of pillows he's trimmed in fringes and velvets.

Have a Lot of Options

When we enter the photo studio, Olsen is poised behind a 30-foot length of folding dining tables, placed end-to-end and piled high with every sort of objet and accessory imaginable. "Give yourself options," Olsen laughs. "I picked a lot of accessories and Kravet brought a lot too. That's a lesson across the board for styling and for decorating. You have to see it in person before you know if it will work, and in the age of shopping online that's even more important. You never know the scale or if it will work next to something else until you see it in person. You don't want to be pigeonholed."

Don't Be Afraid to Mix

"I'm always shopping from auctions—Sotheby's, Christie's, Doyle—and high-end estate sales in the country," says Olsen. "But I also go to the smaller flea markets, too. The flea market in Chelsea has a wide range—it can be junk or Chinese porcelain for $20. I'm always shopping."

A neutral and a more bold set in the photo studio.

Design for Real Life

At the end of the day, though, Olsen readily admits that designing for a shoot is like creating a dream world, detached from the harsher realities of designing a lived-in home. "Whenever I meet with a client, I'm always fluffing pillows and putting coffee table books at right angles," the designer laughs. "But you also have to know how people live. If they have three small children around, the fragile porcelain is not going to be on the coffee table. I remember Alexa [Hampton] a few weeks ago posted the ADversion of her bedroom and then the real version while she was cleaning her closet. That's reality."

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